Christopher Columbus, the man credited with discovering the New World, spoke Catalan and might have been Jewish, according to a new study published in the US.

The study by Estelle Irizarry, based on official documents and letters of the explorer, found that Columbus came from the Kingdom of Aragon and his native tongue was Catalan.

Irizarry also concluded that Christopher Columbus's origins were not obscure by chance, but rather the result of the famed explorer's having purposely hid the fact he was a converso, a Jewish convert to Christianity.

"The people who [hid their origins] more and had reason to do so were the Jews," she was quoted by Matzav.com as saying, referring to the forced conversions and mass expulsions of Jews from Spain in the 15th century.

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She discovered that the peculiarities of his writing and other linguistic aspects were associated with Ladino, the Jewish ethnolect in late medieval Spain, suggesting that Columbus was in fact Jewish.

"Columbus even punctuated marginal notes and he included copious notes around his pages. In that sense, he followed the punctuation style of the Ladino-speaking scribes," Irizarry said.